A comparison of health related habits, nutrition knowledge, dietary habits, and blood composition according to gender and weight status of college students in Ulsan

Hye-Kyung Kim; Jin-Hee Kim; Hyun-Kyung Jung

doi:10.4163/kjn.2012.45.4.336

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Kim, Kim, and Jung: A comparison of health related habits, nutrition knowledge, dietary habits, and blood composition according to gender and weight status of college students in Ulsan

Research Article

Korean Journal of Nutrition

Korean Journal of Nutrition 2012; 45(4): 336-346.

Published online: 31 August 2012

DOI: https://doi.org/10.4163/kjn.2012.45.4.336

A comparison of health related habits, nutrition knowledge, dietary habits, and blood composition according to gender and weight status of college students in Ulsan

Hye-Kyung Kim, Jin-Hee Kim, Hyun-Kyung Jung

Department of Food and Nutrition, University of Ulsan, Ulsan 680-749, Korea.

To whom correspondence should be addressed. (hkkim@ulsan.ac.kr)

Received 8 March 2012 Revised 9 April 2012 Accepted 7 June 2012

(open-access):

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

This study was carried out to obtain information related to life styles, nutrition knowledge, and dietary habits according to gender and weight status of college students in Ulsan. The subjects were 324 college students (144 males, 180 females), and they were divided into three groups based on BMI. The average BMI was 21.0 kg/m², and the BMI of underweight, normal, and overweight students were 15.4%, 63.0%, and 21.6%, respectively. Among the male students, 0.1% and 34.0%, and among the female subjects, 27.2% and 11.7%, were included in the underweight and overweight groups, respectively. For dietary habits, the rate of skipping breakfast (34.9%) was considerably higher than those skipping lunch and dinner. Overall, the nutrition knowledge score, which was assessed by 15 questions, was somewhat low (44.9/100), yet, it was higher in females than in male students. There were significant differences among gender and weight status in several items of dietary habits such as the speed of eating meals, consuming breakfast on a regular basis, and sleeping hours. 40% of the subjects had appropriate knowledge about high calorie foods with low nutritional value. In the blood analysis of the subjects, males had higher hemoglobin levels than females. Further, more females were included in the risk group of Hb, total cholesterol, and LDL. These results suggest that in order to develop nutrition education programs for college students, differences between gender and weight status, dietary habits, and nutrition knowledge level should be considered.

Keywords: health related lifestyle, nutrition knowledge, dietary habits, blood composition, college students

Figures and Tables

Fig. 1

Dieting method of the subjects.

Table 1

Antropometric measurements of the subjects

1) Mean ± SD, 2) n (%)

^***: p < 0.001

Table 2

Subjective weight status and BMI status by gender (n(%))

^***: p < 0.001

Table 3

Subjective weight status and BMI status (n (%))

^***: p < 0.001

Table 4

Dieting experience and purpose of the subjects by weight status (n (%))

^**: p < 0.01, ^***: p < 0.001

Table 5

Health related habits by weight status (n (%))

^*: p < 0.05, ^**: p < 0.01

Table 6

Nutrition knowledge score of the subjects by weight status

1) Mean ± SD

Table 7

Nutrition knowledge score by gender

1) Mean ± SD

1: Too much drinking of soft drink causes obesity, 2: Water has no calorie, 3: Sugarless fruit juice has no sugar, 4: Ideal weight loss is 2 kg per week, 5: Frequent taking of fast food gives high calorie intakes

^*: p < 0.05, ^***: p < 0.001

Table 8

Dietary behaviors of the subjects by weight status (n (%))

1) Often (≥ 5/week), Sometimes (3-4/week), Rarely (≤ 2/week)

^*: p < 0.05

Table 9

Food habit score of the subjects

1) Mean ± SD

^*: p < 0.05, ^**: p < 0.01

Table 10

Blood composition of the subjects

1) Mean ± SD

^**: p < 0.01, ^***: p < 0.001

Table 11

Hb level and serum lipids of the subjects (n (%))

^**: p < 0.01, ^***: p < 0.001

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